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supervisor’s learning developed according to Mezirow’s theory of transformative
learning (Mezirow, 1991, 1996a, 1996b).
The description of each supervisor's learning was completed with an
analysis of what sort of supervisor competence developed (Lauvås &
Handal, 1993) if there exists either gaps or conformity between thought
and action, which is crucial to assessing how their supervisor competencies
developed. There is a correlation between how supervisors think
about themselves with what they actually do.
The message of the ten supervisor portraits presented in study 2 can be
summarized as follows:
Supervisory pattern 1
Four of the supervisors are characterized by the first pattern. They have
developed critical thinking about themselves, their thinking and behavior.
They are on the reflection levels 3 or 4. These supervisors lead conversations
in a way that involves everyone in the group and makes the participants'
thoughts visible to each other. Supervisors listen to participants
statements and formulate further and deeper concerns. Questioning goes
back and forth and tries to tie together thought and action. The way supervisors
follow a supervision tradition of action and reflection make
conversation patterns visible. In these cases, the supervisors have developed
an emancipatory form of learning and they reflect critically on their
manner of leading the talks. The supervisors have gotten hold of
knowledge and experience in order to lead the educational conversations
and can translate this knowledge capital into action. They have thus developed
a good supervisor competence.
Supervisory pattern 2
The second pattern characterizes four of the supervisors. They also have
developed a critical thinking about themselves and their ways of
supervising. They are on reflection of levels 3 and 4. These supervisors
lead the conversations by taking examples from their own experience and
give tips and ideas as inspiration to the group. Guiding the conversation
focuses on action, which hinders shifts between thought and action. The
way these supervisors mentor is in line with a tradition among teachers
and the conversations will be largely confirmatory. The conversations
mostly resemble a discussion, where all participants talk at the same time
without listening to each other. The supervisors have a hard time to
switch the unstructured conversation and lead it back to focus on a
certain issue. Supervisors' way of thinking suggests that they are aware of
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